


The Watch Keeper

by natascha_ronin



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-06
Updated: 2016-04-06
Packaged: 2019-03-09 19:12:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13487976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natascha_ronin/pseuds/natascha_ronin
Summary: What Killian was thinking on the roof in the Underworld. S5 Fic.





	The Watch Keeper

“I’m just gonna go sit down for a minute,” Emma says in a thin voice.

She sways as she stands there, and Killian puts his arm around her to walk her over to the wall. She sits down heavily, leaning on his chest before letting go and sitting back. He pulls the heavy coat around her shoulders and kisses her forehead, smoothing out her hair with his hook. 

“You rest here for a minute, I’ll stand watch.”

“Yeah, just a second, and I’ll be back up. ‘Kay?” She looks up at him and he nods, hoping she’ll rest for more than a moment. 

He stands and walks backwards away from her, watching her curl her legs up under the coat to keep warm. He turns around to look out over the street, keeping watch for the witch or the devil, he’s not sure, but he’ll be ready. 

They’ve been here for days on what should have been a quick rescue maneuver (and the voice in the back of his mind says it shouldn’t have happened at all). The book acquired, and this new plan, but still nothing has happened. He shifts in place to keep warm and alert, watching over the street, remembering the last time he was up here. It was a damn foolish act in hindsight, but three hundred years of leaping first and asking questions later wasn’t easy to give up. Besides, it had worked to find out what she’d been up to. 

He glances back at the woman in question. Emma’s leaning sideways, and he runs over to her. Looking down, he sees that she’s asleep and listing starboard. Finally. He exhales a heavy sigh of relief as he gently grips her shoulders and leans her back against the wall, looking on her slumbering form. It can’t be comfortable, the position she’s in, and he wishes he could take her back to the house and tuck her into bed. But he’s on watch until they’re ready to open the elevator, so he goes back to his perch on the edge of the roof.

This is too much, even for a woman as tough as Emma. She hasn’t been sleeping, barely eating, since she rescued him. Gods know how long she went before that. He wasn’t sleeping as the Dark One, and neither was she, so he surmises she’s barely rested since his death. Impatience gnaws at him like a three-headed dog. There has to be something he can do besides bloody stand here and offer moral support to everyone, which he’s not very good at, if he’s honest with himself. He might owe everyone an apology after this is all over for being the most ungrateful hero they’ve ever had to rescue. 

Blast, it’s cold out here. Bugger, he can see his own breath. Since when did Hell freeze over? Isn’t that a saying back in their realm? What he wouldn’t give for his leather frock coat and pants to cut the wind. At least Emma has a thick coat.

He looks back on her. Still sleeping. Good. He’d love to draw her a hot bath and carry her to bed, hum a soft song while she drifts off on downy linens, run his fingers through her hair while she sleeps against his chest. There’s never enough time for them, never enough quiet moments to romance and just be with her. It’s always a crisis, and he finds himself snorting at that because he used the same line with Emma a few months ago. The tables most definitely turned on him. Oh, what a quiet moment…

Watchkeeping was always his favorite job on the ship. Sometimes Smee or one of the officers took turns on quarterdeck at night, but he was always fond of watching the stars, even in Neverland. Nothing looked as lovely as a full moon or a sky full of the heavens over the ocean waves. The night made him more alert, the lack of light heightening his senses. 

When they’re finally free of this wretched place, he thinks, he’d love to take Emma and Henry on an ocean voyage so they can look at the stars. He doubts they’ll ever see the stars here, as he looks up into the black sky. This place is a dead bastardization of the other realms, and he hopes to never visit it again. When his dead heart starts again, he’ll live a finished life with Emma and his friends, no more revenge or villainy. Well, limited at any rate.

As the hour wears on, his patience wears thin. What is taking so long? He checks on Emma again, pulling her upright when she slumps over, trying to make a pillow out of her collar. Guilt is fraying his already worn edges, and watching Emma shivering in her sleep in the cold is enough to drive him mad with it. She shouldn’t be in this state, shouldn’t be so worried over everyone that she can’t sleep until she’s nearly falling over. There must be some way to make this up to her, and as he looks back on her again, fitful and restless in the cold, he swears he’ll spend the rest of eternity doing just that.


End file.
